On November 02 2023 18:37 Harris1st wrote: If you are salty enough you can just buy the game on steam, leave a review then give the game back. Unless the review function is coupled to a minimum playtime?
I don't know if there's a minimum playtime required before being eligible to leave a Steam review, but if there is a minimum playtime, it's definitely not longer than 1 hour. (I've had people leave Steam reviews for my video game after playing only 1 hour.) Anyone who's salty enough to commit to the pay -> review -> refund scheme probably wouldn't have a problem idling or clicking around for at most 1 hour.
Makes me wonder why they don't have this kind of review protection. Just make it 10 hours played before leaving a review. This would solve a lot of review bombing cases. Whats the name of your game?
A longer playtime could certainly be warranted, although there might be some really short games where 10 hours doesn't make sense (and I don't know if I want to play a game I hate for 10 whole hours before voicing my opinions on it). There's definitely a balance there: Playing longer likely means having a better-informed position, but it also means fewer people will bother posting reviews or leaving any feedback. I don't know if the ideal universal number is 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, etc.
Edit: I just looked through my game's reviews again, and it appears that one review had 0.9 hours on record. That makes me think that there's not really a minimum amount of playtime required to leave a Steam review. As long as you buy the game directly through Steam, you can leave a review... which is also annoying, because a lot of people buy/win Steam keys through Kickstarter or as prizes, and their reviews don't factor into the positive/negative Steam rating for a game, even if those players have spent 10, 20, or even 50 hours playing the game. For example, my Steam game's page says "81% of 11 user reviews are positive", when in reality 21 people (not 11) wrote Steam reviews after playing my game on Steam, and 90% of them (not 81%) are positive. Steam even privately tells me this, and shows me all 21 reviews. It's just that those 10 ignored reviews are from players who didn't buy my game directly through Steam, even though they may have played the game on Steam for a very long time. So yeah, I always take Steam scores and reviews with a huge grain of salt, because I don't think Steam uses the best criteria for including/excluding video game feedback.
On November 02 2023 18:37 Harris1st wrote: If you are salty enough you can just buy the game on steam, leave a review then give the game back. Unless the review function is coupled to a minimum playtime?
I don't know if there's a minimum playtime required before being eligible to leave a Steam review, but if there is a minimum playtime, it's definitely not longer than 1 hour. (I've had people leave Steam reviews for my video game after playing only 1 hour.) Anyone who's salty enough to commit to the pay -> review -> refund scheme probably wouldn't have a problem idling or clicking around for at most 1 hour.
Makes me wonder why they don't have this kind of review protection. Just make it 10 hours played before leaving a review. This would solve a lot of review bombing cases. Whats the name of your game?
A longer playtime could certainly be warranted, although there might be some really short games where 10 hours doesn't make sense (and I don't know if I want to play a game I hate for 10 whole hours before voicing my opinions on it). There's definitely a balance there: Playing longer likely means having a better-informed position, but it also means fewer people will bother posting reviews or leaving any feedback. I don't know if the ideal universal number is 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, etc.
Edit: I just looked through my game's reviews again, and it appears that one review had 0.9 hours on record. That makes me think that there's not really a minimum amount of playtime required to leave a Steam review. As long as you buy the game directly through Steam, you can leave a review... which is also annoying, because a lot of people buy/win Steam keys through Kickstarter or as prizes, and their reviews don't factor into the positive/negative Steam rating for a game, even if those players have spent 10, 20, or even 50 hours playing the game. For example, my Steam game's page says "81% of 11 user reviews are positive", when in reality 21 people (not 11) wrote Steam reviews after playing my game on Steam, and 90% of them (not 81%) are positive. Steam even privately tells me this, and shows me all 21 reviews. It's just that those 10 ignored reviews are from players who didn't buy my game directly through Steam, even though they may have played the game on Steam for a very long time. So yeah, I always take Steam scores and reviews with a huge grain of salt, because I don't think Steam uses the best criteria for including/excluding video game feedback.
Everyone can see all 21 of the reviews on your game. I'd imagine the keys don't count because some developer was gifting themselves keys to positively review their game.
On November 02 2023 18:37 Harris1st wrote: If you are salty enough you can just buy the game on steam, leave a review then give the game back. Unless the review function is coupled to a minimum playtime?
I don't know if there's a minimum playtime required before being eligible to leave a Steam review, but if there is a minimum playtime, it's definitely not longer than 1 hour. (I've had people leave Steam reviews for my video game after playing only 1 hour.) Anyone who's salty enough to commit to the pay -> review -> refund scheme probably wouldn't have a problem idling or clicking around for at most 1 hour.
Makes me wonder why they don't have this kind of review protection. Just make it 10 hours played before leaving a review. This would solve a lot of review bombing cases. Whats the name of your game?
A longer playtime could certainly be warranted, although there might be some really short games where 10 hours doesn't make sense (and I don't know if I want to play a game I hate for 10 whole hours before voicing my opinions on it). There's definitely a balance there: Playing longer likely means having a better-informed position, but it also means fewer people will bother posting reviews or leaving any feedback. I don't know if the ideal universal number is 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, etc.
Edit: I just looked through my game's reviews again, and it appears that one review had 0.9 hours on record. That makes me think that there's not really a minimum amount of playtime required to leave a Steam review. As long as you buy the game directly through Steam, you can leave a review... which is also annoying, because a lot of people buy/win Steam keys through Kickstarter or as prizes, and their reviews don't factor into the positive/negative Steam rating for a game, even if those players have spent 10, 20, or even 50 hours playing the game. For example, my Steam game's page says "81% of 11 user reviews are positive", when in reality 21 people (not 11) wrote Steam reviews after playing my game on Steam, and 90% of them (not 81%) are positive. Steam even privately tells me this, and shows me all 21 reviews. It's just that those 10 ignored reviews are from players who didn't buy my game directly through Steam, even though they may have played the game on Steam for a very long time. So yeah, I always take Steam scores and reviews with a huge grain of salt, because I don't think Steam uses the best criteria for including/excluding video game feedback.
Everyone can see all 21 of the reviews on your game. I'd imagine the keys don't count because some developer was gifting themselves keys to positively review their game.
Hmm, that's interesting. Thanks for letting me know! When I log out of my Steam account, the first thing I see is 81% positive out of 11 reviews, and I think that gaming sites report the percent and number shown on the front of a Steam page. I can't imagine that people will go out of their way to search for the actual percent and all the hidden reviews, but that'd be awesome if they did.
Anyways, I don't know how much stock people will put into Diablo 4's Steam ratings/reviews. The game seems to be slowly improving, thankfully, although it's still too slow for a lot of people.
Good point. Though then the magic number should be above 2 hours because that is the threshold for refunding games AFAIK.
Soo just played around with the review filters for D4 and indeed most negative reviews are under 2 hours played. Now obviously like you mentioned a lot of people dont play a game they hate for more than 2 hours but I assume in this special circumstance I believe my theory is right: Buy, leave bad review, refund
On November 02 2023 18:37 Harris1st wrote: If you are salty enough you can just buy the game on steam, leave a review then give the game back. Unless the review function is coupled to a minimum playtime?
I don't know if there's a minimum playtime required before being eligible to leave a Steam review, but if there is a minimum playtime, it's definitely not longer than 1 hour. (I've had people leave Steam reviews for my video game after playing only 1 hour.) Anyone who's salty enough to commit to the pay -> review -> refund scheme probably wouldn't have a problem idling or clicking around for at most 1 hour.
Makes me wonder why they don't have this kind of review protection. Just make it 10 hours played before leaving a review. This would solve a lot of review bombing cases. Whats the name of your game?
A longer playtime could certainly be warranted, although there might be some really short games where 10 hours doesn't make sense (and I don't know if I want to play a game I hate for 10 whole hours before voicing my opinions on it). There's definitely a balance there: Playing longer likely means having a better-informed position, but it also means fewer people will bother posting reviews or leaving any feedback. I don't know if the ideal universal number is 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, etc.
Edit: I just looked through my game's reviews again, and it appears that one review had 0.9 hours on record. That makes me think that there's not really a minimum amount of playtime required to leave a Steam review. As long as you buy the game directly through Steam, you can leave a review... which is also annoying, because a lot of people buy/win Steam keys through Kickstarter or as prizes, and their reviews don't factor into the positive/negative Steam rating for a game, even if those players have spent 10, 20, or even 50 hours playing the game. For example, my Steam game's page says "81% of 11 user reviews are positive", when in reality 21 people (not 11) wrote Steam reviews after playing my game on Steam, and 90% of them (not 81%) are positive. Steam even privately tells me this, and shows me all 21 reviews. It's just that those 10 ignored reviews are from players who didn't buy my game directly through Steam, even though they may have played the game on Steam for a very long time. So yeah, I always take Steam scores and reviews with a huge grain of salt, because I don't think Steam uses the best criteria for including/excluding video game feedback.
So that means if I buy a Steam game through Fanatical/GOG, any review I leave would show up but is not counted on the aggregate score? Well, that's interesting.
On November 02 2023 22:31 Harris1st wrote: Good point. Though then the magic number should be above 2 hours because that is the threshold for refunding games AFAIK.
Kinda off-topic but to add my 2 cents: Even >2 hours is too high imho. There are great games on Steam, which barely have 2 hours of play-time (We Were Here for example). I also think you should be able to review a game you refund because you don't like them. Maybe add a refund-tag to those reviews but they should be possible.
I also don't think "review-bombing" is as much of a problem is people make it out to be. In the case of D4, a lot of people probably either bought D4 or played the free beta. Why shouldn't they be allowed to add a Steam review if they disliked the game? Maybe I'm wrong here but I have a hard time imagining a large number of people going through the trouble of buying and refunding the game on Steam, just to leave a negative video, if they aren't even invested enough to give the free beta a go...
Oh, I'm sure many of those people have played the game before and many have legitimate gripes about D4, especially how it was before season 2. I was just wondering if they had to buy the game a second time just to leave a review. If I dislike something, the last thing I will do is give them more money. And having to buy the game again a second time on Steam is a legitimate ire.
On November 02 2023 22:31 Harris1st wrote: Good point. Though then the magic number should be above 2 hours because that is the threshold for refunding games AFAIK.
Kinda off-topic but to add my 2 cents: Even >2 hours is too high imho. There are great games on Steam, which barely have 2 hours of play-time (We Were Here for example). I also think you should be able to review a game you refund because you don't like them. Maybe add a refund-tag to those reviews but they should be possible.
I also don't think "review-bombing" is as much of a problem is people make it out to be. In the case of D4, a lot of people probably either bought D4 or played the free beta. Why shouldn't they be allowed to add a Steam review if they disliked the game? Maybe I'm wrong here but I have a hard time imagining a large number of people going through the trouble of buying and refunding the game on Steam, just to leave a negative video, if they aren't even invested enough to give the free beta a go...
‘Review bombing’ is only really an issue because of either a lack of proportionality, or people writing savage ‘reviews’ for reasons outside of the game itself.
In the former, giving something a 0/10 or whatever for not living up to expectations but was serviceable. I’d imagine many here are ultimately disappointed with D4, but at worst would probably score it 5 or 6/10, something more reflective.
The latter you see things like people throwing 0/10s at the Horizon expansion because Aloy had a gay romance option. And you see more and more of that these days. Weird PlayStation fanboys doing similar to Starfield because it’s the big Xbox console exclusive, or the inverse for Spiderman lately.
People have the right to voice their opinions but if they can’t exercise that right properly en masse then it starts to make user reviews and aggregates less and less reliable, and if it was even more widespread they’d be borderline useless.
I don’t think we’re there yet, but the direction of travel isn’t particularly positive in this domain.
On November 02 2023 22:31 Harris1st wrote: Good point. Though then the magic number should be above 2 hours because that is the threshold for refunding games AFAIK.
Kinda off-topic but to add my 2 cents: Even >2 hours is too high imho. There are great games on Steam, which barely have 2 hours of play-time (We Were Here for example). I also think you should be able to review a game you refund because you don't like them. Maybe add a refund-tag to those reviews but they should be possible.
I also don't think "review-bombing" is as much of a problem is people make it out to be. In the case of D4, a lot of people probably either bought D4 or played the free beta. Why shouldn't they be allowed to add a Steam review if they disliked the game? Maybe I'm wrong here but I have a hard time imagining a large number of people going through the trouble of buying and refunding the game on Steam, just to leave a negative video, if they aren't even invested enough to give the free beta a go...
‘Review bombing’ is only really an issue because of either a lack of proportionality, or people writing savage ‘reviews’ for reasons outside of the game itself.
In the former, giving something a 0/10 or whatever for not living up to expectations but was serviceable. I’d imagine many here are ultimately disappointed with D4, but at worst would probably score it 5 or 6/10, something more reflective.
The latter you see things like people throwing 0/10s at the Horizon expansion because Aloy had a gay romance option. And you see more and more of that these days. Weird PlayStation fanboys doing similar to Starfield because it’s the big Xbox console exclusive, or the inverse for Spiderman lately.
People have the right to voice their opinions but if they can’t exercise that right properly en masse then it starts to make user reviews and aggregates less and less reliable, and if it was even more widespread they’d be borderline useless.
I don’t think we’re there yet, but the direction of travel isn’t particularly positive in this domain.
Giving 0/10 for those reasons sounds absolutely terrible. It's really difficult to truly have a 0/10 game. I have a huge tier list of Nintendo Switch games, based on my personal rankings, and even the F-tier games would probably be like 3/10 in many cases.
On November 02 2023 22:31 Harris1st wrote: Good point. Though then the magic number should be above 2 hours because that is the threshold for refunding games AFAIK.
Kinda off-topic but to add my 2 cents: Even >2 hours is too high imho. There are great games on Steam, which barely have 2 hours of play-time (We Were Here for example). I also think you should be able to review a game you refund because you don't like them. Maybe add a refund-tag to those reviews but they should be possible.
I also don't think "review-bombing" is as much of a problem is people make it out to be. In the case of D4, a lot of people probably either bought D4 or played the free beta. Why shouldn't they be allowed to add a Steam review if they disliked the game? Maybe I'm wrong here but I have a hard time imagining a large number of people going through the trouble of buying and refunding the game on Steam, just to leave a negative video, if they aren't even invested enough to give the free beta a go...
‘Review bombing’ is only really an issue because of either a lack of proportionality, or people writing savage ‘reviews’ for reasons outside of the game itself.
In the former, giving something a 0/10 or whatever for not living up to expectations but was serviceable. I’d imagine many here are ultimately disappointed with D4, but at worst would probably score it 5 or 6/10, something more reflective.
The latter you see things like people throwing 0/10s at the Horizon expansion because Aloy had a gay romance option. And you see more and more of that these days. Weird PlayStation fanboys doing similar to Starfield because it’s the big Xbox console exclusive, or the inverse for Spiderman lately.
People have the right to voice their opinions but if they can’t exercise that right properly en masse then it starts to make user reviews and aggregates less and less reliable, and if it was even more widespread they’d be borderline useless.
I don’t think we’re there yet, but the direction of travel isn’t particularly positive in this domain.
Giving 0/10 for those reasons sounds absolutely terrible. It's really difficult to truly have a 0/10 game. I have a huge tier list of Nintendo Switch games, based on my personal rankings, and even the F-tier games would probably be like 3/10 in many cases.
Even without those reasons, there are plenty of fans who only know two scores, 0 and 10. Remove the non-game reasons and plenty of reviews still end up with fanboys and haters quarreling and only using the two extreme scores.
Late-2024 makes me more hopeful, especially if it gets delayed to 2025. I'm not keen on yearly expansions, 1.5-2 years sounds more manageable.
Also, Act 3 had the most obnoxious enemies in D2. Not the first place I'd want to visit on a nostalgia trip. Can't be helped if it's Mephisto I guess. I'm hoping for an LoD/RoS level overhaul and improvement.
I really fucking hope they don't charge another 60-70 USD for this... closer to 30-40 if these are to be yearly. I also don't have high hopes for games that have a yearly release cycle. The quality ALWAYS suffers in the long run. With that said, they could've cut enough content from base D4 before release that the first Xpack will feel somewhat OK, but I still feel weary of any yearly release.
Well I'd imagine it was cut content, or content that wasn't ready for D4, so hopefully they are adding a lot more to make it a proper expansion rather than a DLC.
Keep in mind I never played D3. So I have no idea what a Witch Doctor (or Spirit something according to the leaks) is. No idea what the class could be but it is a class that the Diablo IP has never seen.
edit: Someone said it will be a Priest class due to the music in the trailer.
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.redd.it/7mkswv5xd7yb1.jpg)
